ears before the Lady Vols were hanging banners in Knoxville, the University of Tennessee had a champion women’s basketYtheball
team in Memphis. As early as 1953, the UT Nurses had competed against nurses from local hospitals in a league run by
city’s parks commission. But, they took off in 1955 when they found a volunteer coach named Jim Stockdale, who had

recently arrived on campus as the new director of student welfare. To complement a schedule that included a dozen games
each season, Stockdale started a tournament for other nursing school teams—the Cotton States Nurses Invitational—drawing
competition from as far afield as Georgia and Kansas. Under Stockdale’s direction, the UT Nurses won seven tournament
championships and 12 Nurses League titles in 26 years.

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